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Hybrid or Diesel?

Please people chill out a bit on what is BETTER. Both are great but there is no perfect answer...both hybrids and diesels have their pros and cons. Both are more economical than bigger, fatter cars. But both are worse than taking a bus, walking or biking and WE MISS THE WHOLE POINT IF WE DRIVE A LOT MORE IN OUR NEW HYBRIDS OR DIESELS THAN WE DID IN LESS ECONOMICAL OR LESS "GREEN" CARS.

Someone made a good simple point that if you drive in traffic and in town more, hybrids may make more sense, but if you log more miles on the open road diesel (TDIs etc) make more sense. Again, there is no perferct answer...so please folks no need to over-obsess!

Hybrid or Diesel?

Todd...modern diesel are great misers i traffic due
to the fact the air to fuel ratio at idel is somewhere
around 60:1 while gasoline cars (except 2.0t audi a3
and some VW using direct injection) ratio is 14.7:1.
My Jetta TDI never got less than 40mpg weven in fairly
heave traffic.

Hybrid or Diesel?

"I've read where the average motorcycle weight is 300lbs. HCH and Prius is around 2000lbs.
Can you agree that it is amazing that today's 2000lb hybrid car MPG avergages about the same MPG as a 300lb motorcycle?"

But you forgot things like power-to-weight ratios. And no wonder, because hybrids are dog-slow.

An $11,000 motorcycle will buy you enough machine to outrun, outbrake and outhandle anything that's not a Formula One car. And that challenge inlcudes any flavor of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Corvette or Viper you can think of.

And the bike will return over 40 mpg as well.

People need to be a little more objective and get their facts straight. I see plenty of nonsense being tossed around here; lopping 800 pounds of weight off the hybrids and calling it fact was too much for me.

Hybrid or Diesel?

Spad, I stand corrected.

A nearly 3000lb vehicle gets about the same MPG as a 500lb one.
Pretty amazing.
Now that the weather is broken I'm back into the upper 50's-low 60's MPG.
And yes, motorcycles are more nimble than automobiles.

Hybrid or Diesel?

Spad,

Lets see your $11K bike keep up with a Tzero, a Wrightspeed X1, a Venturi Fetish, or even George Clooney's Tango 600. These are street legal, pure 4-wheel electrics that get effectively more than 100 mpg and can out accelerate all those other slow gas passers you mention.

Actually a good Ninja can probably slightly edge one of these EV's on the 1/4 mile but not in the rain :-) Clooney's Tango can even split lanes like a motorcycle and still has a NHRA and SCCA approved roll cage in case you mis-judge. With the exception of the Tango, all will go farther on a charge (~200 miles) than most motorcycles on a tank of gas.

It would be nice to see the major car companies come out with a hybrid or pure electric with that kind of performance as well but at least we know it can be done.

Hybrid or Diesel?

I don't own a bike, EV1. I fail to see what the cottage industry of Corbinmobiles has to do with what I was talking about.

And Steve, I don't see anything extraordinary about the fact that a motorcycle and hybrid get similar mileage.
1- a gallon of gasoline has a standard amount of BTUs
2- the ICE can't be engineered with much more efficiency than it already has
3- motorcycles have a horrible Cd
4- hybrids are slower by an order of magnitude

A bike's not just "more nimble," it's a whole other category of motoring.

Take Weight/Power of a fuel-saving hybrid or diesel and you'll see it's somewhere in the 20s or low 30s. The ultralightweight, 190hp Lotus Elise is somewhere around 10. A $180,000 Ferrari is 6.5.

A multimillion dollar Formula One ride clocks in at 1.5 and a $10k superbike around 2. Yeah, it's like that. And ridden delicately it'll return comparable mileage to hybrids.

If you took half the drivetrain technology available in a hybrid or turbodiesel and slapped it on a bike you'd be getting double the mileage of an Insight.

Hybrid or Diesel?

Have to agree with Tony about the Jetta TDI's
MPG. Each time I fill up I write down gls and
mileage. I have yet to get less than 40.
On longer trips I got 53 mpg otherwise I get
an average of 45mpg with my five speed stick.
Tony is referring to a DSG transmission which
is a revolution. It satisfies everone and give
execellent mpg. Just enter "VW DSG" in search engine.

Hybrid or Diesel?

One thing to keep in mind in throwing around all these numbers is that everybody has their own opinions, and most people are pretty set in those opinions regardless of the facts. Peoples performance also varies greatly based on driving habits, even the condition of the road surface makes a difference.

Someone said that they would never put their family in a Toyota Prius? I took my family from central Michigan to Colorado Springs and up to the top of Pikes Peak and back home to Michigan, as well as a about 300 miles of general driving in and around C.S./Denver while out there. And did not feel unsafe in doing so (admittedly I went with the full safety features in the model that I purchased). Drove 3,382 miles on 55 gallons of gas, getting ~61.5 mpg. That was a family of four, with a weeks worth of luggage (with wife and two teenage daughters, thus LOTS of luggage, thus with the added luggage and people with a curb weight of about 3,600 lbs). At a fuel cost of ~$120 for the entire trip.

Let’s see anybody do that on a motorcycle…

People talk about the Prius getting better mileage in the city where the regenerative braking makes a difference. Well, I'm not sure why by I average only about 48 mpg in the city (~52 during the summer, ~42 during the winter (here in Michigan were we have snow and ice for a fair portion of the year)). Meanwhile I average ~56 on the highway (~60 in the summer, ~53 in the winter). Thus I get just the opposite of what the EPA sticker says I should be getting, but my average is damned close to what the sticker says. Likewise with the constant readout and a 30 minute chart, I have seen differences of more than 5 mpg based on changing road surfaces (broken concrete to smooth pavement) on the expressway, at a constant speed using the cruise control (once you get the technique down you can actually get better mileage with a Prius with the cruise off and can also get better mileage than the EPA sticker under the right conditions). My driving is about 50/50 city/highway (most of the driving is within 5 miles of our house, but yet take a much longer drive about once every two weeks). Filled my car up yesterday and it was the first time I’ve spent over $20.00 (the gas price is up to about ~$2.50 per gallon here for octane 87).

Despite having spent most of my adult life driving full sized pickup trucks (due to needing to drive them up until the past few years), I am not the least bit disappointed in my Prius. It has plenty of power and speed when you need it for passing, climbing hills (and mountains!), or simply accelerating.

And to the guy who said something about being angry about having to subsidize hybrids becase of the tax breaks we get, well you can also be pissed off at yourself, as by driving bigger gas guzzling vehicles, your waste is what is driving the prices of the fuel that all of us use, as well as the costs of everything we purchase (especially plastics, energy, and anything that is transported very far).

Everybody has their reasons to drive the type of vehicle that they drive. Personally driving something that is both economical and clean in an attempt to keep the air cleaner and slow the depletion of the world’s petroleum reserves is my reason. And frankly, I am impressed with the technology behind the car and am very pleased with its capabilities (and that coming from someone who has driven more than a million miles in vehicles using 350 and 454 c.i. engines).

And as to the economics of the fuel savings paying for themselves, personally I really don’t care if it ever does. Some people do, some don’t. I had looked at that, and estimated that it would take about 5-6 years for the added costs to be covered, however I did on take into consideration maintenance costs, however with less frequent oil changes (Toyota recommends every 5k miles), fewer brake changes (regenerative braking system), the transmission (not going to take the time to go into this), etc.; not sure how these will bear out relative to the large battery, but if I need to spend ~$1,000 in 8-10 years I think it will even out in the long run. Economics was not my reason for purchasing it in the first place. But regardless of all that, I will be driving this vehicle until it becomes too undependable to drive anymore (thus will likely be driving it into retirement, despite only being in my late 30’s, as I have not been happier with any vehicle I’ve ever owned). After all the worst investment there is, is purchasing a brand new vehicle due to the way that they depreciate so much in the first few years.

On the topic of diesels, yes, they have some great advantages, but in my opinion the best option will be when there is finally a clean hybrid diesel car. But even at that point, not so sure I’d switch to it, unless my current car was starting to be too much of a maintenance worry (which if taken care of properly is unlikely).